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I was suddenly overwhelmed with the need to speak specifically to those of you who are feeling shattered….you know who you are. Whether it be addiction, mental illness, homelessness, hopelessness or the fact that every day you wake up and it feels like a curse… a burden or sick joke….another day. Just trying to maintain to get through to the next day and then the next….. just running out the clock on this life.This is how I lived my life up until I finally let Christ into my heart and into my life. When I mention Jesus to people a lot of times they will respond just like I used to. When I would hear that name I would either fake interest and tune it out, scoff at these “christian fools” or sometimes react on feelings of flat out contempt, like they were judging me.I am here to tell you that lie is keeping you bound in your hopelessness, just like it did me. I don’t speak this as some Christian who grew up in the church. In 2012 God saved me from myself….. i destroyed everything. I tried rehab, jail, mental wards, marriage, divorce, a career, homelessness…. the hopelessness was always there. When I finally stop fighting God and let Him in, everything changed. My life is more than I could have dreamed…..I remember sitting in the alleys praying to a God for a normal life. I am here to tell you life is good on the other side! For some reason we believe the lie that keeps us shackled and bound. Don’t believe it…..please don’t believe it.I ask that you call on the name of Jesus and let Him show you that I speak the Truth. There is hope brothers and sisters.No matter what you did, what your struggle or what pain you have. Jesus can and will redeem you and bless you more than you can imagine…. but it’s up to you to choose Him.If you would like to privately reach out to me if anything spoke to you, you can email me directly at RawDiscipleministries@gmail.com or, https://rawdisciple.com/prayer-requests/

No tricks or gimmicks. I just want you to experience the freedom that was given to me and that is waiting for you.

We pray about it, we sing about it and today, I asked Holy Spirit about it.

I was praying and worshipping to some Jesus Culture this morning while walking to work. As I was praying I asked God, “How can I get closer to You?” “How can I be able to more consistently bask in Your presence?… Help me to be able to truly rest in Your promises…..tell me what to do Father.”

As I am praying this my mind immediately flashed a picture of Adam in the garden. It was so vivid and clear which I noticed immediately because I don’t have the best imagination. I have never experienced a vision from the Lord but I feel that is what this was. It almost felt like it was implanted in my brain;

Adam was crouching behind a bush with a look of confusion and fear on his face as God called out to him. His head was darting back and forth as if to be looking for somewhere to run. He had sweat on his brow as his labored breathing was visible. When the Lord called his name, (which I could not audibly hear but I knew/felt Him do it..somehow) Adam ducked his head a little lower and shook his head in frustration and shame….. then picture was gone.

Suddenly Holy Spirit whispered in my heart,” It’s not what you need to do, it’s what you need to stop doing.”

In that moment Holy Spirit revealed to me that I had let the enemy take a stronghold in my relationship with Jesus….. the enemy blinded me until this morning that I have been dodging deeper intimacy with God….because of things I haven’t wanted to face, can anyone relate to this?

In that vision, God made it crystal clear to me that just like then, it is not a matter of Him finding us. It’s a matter of us choosing to let ourselves be exposed to God in the most vulnerable of ways. Yes, He knows everything anyways but in that Adam experience we put up our own barriers between us and God…… at least I did.We must remember how much He loves us and we must remain honest with ourselves.

The enemy’s non stop goal is to make us forget that Love, to doubt His grace. The devil knows that he can do nothing to take us from the embrace of the Lord. So he subtly and gradually tries to deceive us into choosing to back away from God.

No matter what you have done… no matter how good you feel you are doing. Allow yourself to be laid bare before our King, and trust in His love and grace….and I’ll do the same.

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The enemy’s voice is always speaking, droning on. And if we don’t seek the voice of the Father we can never be free.

Towards the end of my dad’s life the cancer affected the speech center of his brain. He was there mentally, it was clear that he knew where he was and what He was saying…. it just didn’t make sense to anyone else. It would come out in a stream of random words that formed no seemingly coherent thought. We discovered that if he said one word at a time, very slowly the correct word (s) would come out. This only worked for short sentences because he would get frustrated and give up…. towards the very end even this wasn’t very reliable.

His mind was fading fast and all I could do was smile and nod like I knew what he was talking about…. I just wanted to be with him. When I would tell him I didn’t understand him or ask him to repeat something I would see a very pained look that I never wish on anyone to see in their dad’s face; one of fear and helplessness and very real humanity… so I nodded and smiled.

One afternoon he was talking his nonsense and he stopped. I looked over to him to see why he stopped and he looked at me, pointed to his face and slowly, forcefully said 7 words that still echo in my mind to this day.

He said, “Justin, It, All, Comes, Back, To, You.”

I am not sure what he meant by those words but in that moment my throat seized up….. I’ll never forget the focus, the urgency in his eyes when he said it……

Was he fooled by the enemy into thinking that God was punishing him for all his mistakes?….. Was he trying to pass on his final declaration to me about doing good?…… I will never know, and I have to learn to be ok with that. Some stories we don’t know the outcome this side of heaven and that truth needs to be accepted.

I never knew for sure if my dad accepted Christ before the end. I watched God reach out to my dad throughout that year of sickness and pain and I never knew, cause that’s how my dad was…..

These words echo in my mind because He could have meant two very different things depending on who’s voice he was listening to; God or satan.

….i think about this and I hope and pray that he was speaking life to me and not death on himself. Sometimes we have to be okay not knowing. We just have to trust in the not knowing……knowing that God is good.

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How many times have our blessings been cheapened because they didn’t turn out exactly as we envisioned it or hoped it would be?

I was riding my bike down to the beach this afternoon. Since I have started with the street ministry I have become quite mobile, but I just wanted to go down and enjoy the sunset. About halfway to the beach I got a flat tire on my bike which stopped me dead in my tracks. At this point I had about 30 minutes until sunset, so there was no way I was going to make it to the beach in time. I happened to be near my brother’s house, which is also the house I grew up in. I decided I had come this far so I might as well hang out on the roof and make the best of it and watch the sunset anyways.

The sunset that followed was such an amazing display of beauty. With the dissipating marine layer the colors were so brilliant, so beautiful….so perfect.

I praised God in that moment, and then all of a sudden I started thinking how much better it would have been if I had made it to the beach. In the first moment of brilliance I was consumed by beauty. But as soon as I began to focus on this fact all of a sudden it wasn’t as perfect anymore.

It was in this moment when Holy Spirit revealed to me the very truth that I write now. We must stop looking for what we want to happen and be grateful for what God gives us. We must stop envisioning what God’s plan should be and then be upset or disappointed because it went a little differently than we thought it should have.

I am not preaching because I feel like the number one offender of this. Don’t let the enemy’s lies or even your own plans blind you from the amazing blessings that are right in front of you.